Happy Scrappy Mug Rug

I got to sew a little on my Bernina this morning. It's been a while because I've been focused on quilting my magic stars quilt on my Brother machine. Our power was out again Sunday and Monday due to a predicted high wind event in our area. And the same fire that sent us running a couple of weeks ago made another approach from a different direction on Sunday night. This time it was a closer community that got the evacuation order. When we got that notice we started packing, once again by flashlight. We had the car loaded and pretty much ready to go when we got the evacuation warning for our location. So we decided to leave and were relieved that the cats were easier to catch and get into their carriers this time. Just about the time we left we heard from a friend who lives on another nearby ridge but who was not in the danger zone. When she found out we were evacuating she made over night arrangements for us so we didn't have to spend the night in the church parking lot again. Once we were settled and had the cats in a room to themselves I let them out of their carriers so they could access food, water, and the litter box. When I opened their carriers they came out cautiously and then, to my surprise, went immediately back in to the opposite carrier from the one in which they had just arrived.We had put them in the closest carrier to them in the moment - but they knew whose carrier was whose and we had it wrong! 

Early yesterday morning we took them back to the vet clinic and left them to be boarded. We got some breakfast in town and then headed home to check up on the situation. We were still under the evacuation warning but as long as there was no update to an order we decided to stay. I spent a little time in the sewing room pulling scraps for a project I want to begin when I'm done with my Magic Stars quilt. But pulling and sorting them was as much as I could do since I couldn't use the iron to press them with the power still out. 

Around 3:00 pm our power came back on, but by then I was too worn out to do much of anything but enjoy the AC. In the evening we went back to Chico and got dinner at one of our favorite burger joints and ate outside on the patio along the main street of town. The smoke had lightened down there significantly by then and there was only a breeze instead of a high wind like there had been all day at our house. It was very pleasant and a much needed break from the stress all the wind, smoke, and fire danger has had us in for weeks now. We spent the night at home and got a very good night's sleep, which we both really needed. We are still under an evacuation warning, but the fire is 95% contained now and the wind has died down to just a mild breeze, so we are feeling reasonably confident that we won't get an evacuation order and have to leave again. We are hoping that the warning will be lifted later today so we can pick up the cats and bring them home too. We don't want to risk having to put them through that trauma again so soon. Though unless we get a nice dousing of unexpected rain we know that we could have to run through this scenario again within the coming weeks. This picture of them was taken in December of 2019 - all peaceful and no idea of what lay ahead for any of us in 2020.  

My magic stars quilt got packed with a churn dash quilt I made for us years ago and they are still in the car, which is still packed and ready to go, just in case. So this morning I started pressing some of the scraps and pulled a few out to make a mug rug for a little table that was Dan's mom's. It's unfinished and needs a little protection. I had fun working with the pink and green scraps and pulling the little piece together without a pattern. I've not done any piecing in that way before and think I could do more of it. I've made a few mug rugs for around the sewing room and one for Dan's study table. I don't bind them. I trimmed this one to size and then used a fancy zig-zag stitch around the outer edge. I've used pinking sheers on the others to help prevent fraying, but the little green strip on this one is so thin it would disappear if I did.

I'm very close to finishing quilting the magic stars quilt, but won't be getting it done by month's end as I had hoped. Losing power and evacuating twice this month kept me from getting it completed as was my One Monthly Goal for September. Another thing that slowed down my progress was my incomplete planning on the quilting itself. Once I got a number of the large square areas quilted as planned I realized that there was too much space left unquilted between them. The empty space is pictured here on the right. I had to add quilting to all those spaces and that extended the amount of quilting time. The motif I used, shown in the photo below can be used for different sizes of areas, instead of four layers of petals I used two layers for these small in between areas. 

Also, when I reached the outside edge I found that I had large triangles between the quilted squares that I hadn't planned any quilting for, so had to come up with a way to get that quilted too. It took me quite a while to figure something out that would work with the quilting I had already done. The picture on the left shows the sunflower quilting pattern I'm using. I marked it using white taylor's chalk, something I've not used before. It's worked out quite well showing up on the light and dark fabrics. I'm hoping it will come completely out of those dark fabrics once I wash the quilt. I've been using a stiff bristled paint brush to wipe it off after quilting the motif, and the darkest of the fabrics are still showing some of the chalk. The outer triangles are the last of the quilting that needs to be done, but I have not started them yet. 

One other issue has slowed down my quilting on the magic stars quilt. Suzette has claimed it for her own and thinks that she is entitled to possession of it while I am working on it. She can get very feisty if I try to pick her up off of it too, but going into the pantry and pulling out one of her kitty treats works every time. She knows that sound and hops down and comes to meet me as soon as she hears it. Then she gets closed out of the sewing room so I can work. The quilt is queen size and heavy enough without her extra 10 pounds. She must be confused about the "queen" designation of the quilt and think it's hers because she's the Queen. 

Well the day is getting on and I should attend to a little housework. No word yet about the evacuation warning for our area being lifted. I hope it comes soon. 

I'm linking up with Cynthia of Quilting is More fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!

I'm linking up Patty at Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal.

Stay safe and be well - Happy Quilting! 

This has been quite a week. Some slow Sunday Stitching will be a good plan for the afternoon, just to relax and focus on what's right in front of me. Living in Paradise during this time of year is challenging. We live in an area that frequently gets very strong gusty winds. Mix that with fire and you have disaster, which is what happened here in 2018. Though our home was spared and we were not here during the Camp Fire, we still live with the devastation of our town. We are also more acutely aware of the danger of fire during such wind events. 

The North Complex fire began miles away from us a month ago from a dry lightning storm. There was lightning all around us that day and we were so relieved that it didn't start any fires very near to us. We didn't expect to be impacted by the fire that started so far away so many weeks ago. However it has been slowly coming our direction and on Tuesday we had one of those wild wind events that caused us to evacuate. We had a warning last Saturday evening that our power company would be shutting off the power to our area because of the predicted wind event. The planned power outage was for Monday night until Wednesday night. Power went out around 10:30 Monday night. 

Tuesday evening I stepped outside and saw this. The photo doesn't show just how dark that smoke was. As the evening progressed the smoke spread to cover the whole area. So after dinner we packed our bags by flashlight and set everything by the garage door ready to load the car. It was difficult to go to sleep that night, the wind was howling around us and ash was falling everywhere. At 1:30 we got an emergency alert for an immediate evacuation for an area closer to us than was comfortable. We we grabbed the cats, got them in their carriers, loaded up the car and left. We headed down to Chico and tried to find a hotel room, no rooms available. We spent the next few hours in our church parking lot, trying to sleep. 

We headed back home around 5:00 am, showered, slept a couple of hours and woke up to this. The red was not just in the east with the sunrise, it was everywhere. We got another evacuation warning, closer to us than the one in the night. We loaded the cats back up and left again. We were able to drop our cats off to be boarded at the vet in Chico and headed for my Dad's house in Redding, where we spent the night Wednesday. Sometime during the day on Wednesday we got notified that the East side of Paradise, very close to us, was under evacuation warning and that the community beyond the canyon was also under evacuation warning. 

Thursday the winds had calmed down significantly, the power company restored our power mid morning, and later in the day the evacuation warning in Paradise was lifted. We came home. Ash everywhere. I swept and hosed down the ashes from the front porch Thursday afternoon. I haven't done anything about the ashes on the back deck or our patio in back just yet. It's taken a couple of days to get our bearings back. About an hour ago we got another evacuation warning to an area near us, though not as close as the ones that came on Tuesday. It was windy here this morning but not like early this week. And the winds have died down for the moment and ash is no longer falling here. That's a relief but we are still on the alert. Smoke has been very bad here as you might imagine, so thick sometimes that we can't see the far side of the canyon behind us. 

I didn't get much sewing done this week. I did manage a few blocks for the small Magic Stars quilt, in red and purple - covering the Red challenge for the RSC for September. My plan had been to get the large Magic Stars quilt sandwiched and basted while the power was out. So I spent a good part of Monday putting the back together, and ironing the front and the back while the batting was laid out on the bed relaxing. When we packed Tuesday evening, I packed both the front and back of that quilt, so much for having ironed them. 

Tuesday I got some hand stitching done on my mama's Dresden plate quilt. My mother started this piece when I was a child. She died when I was seven and my grandmother saved the project for me and gave it to me early in my marriage, almost 40 years ago. So these are not 30s reproduction prints, they are the real deal. My mother and my grandmother both quilted, I consider it part of my heritage, though I didn't learn quilting from either of them.  I'll try to get some more work done on it today. I tried early on to get the plates appliqued onto the background but had no idea at the time what I was doing. I didn't start quilting until some years later. I'm nearly done with getting the plates sewn down properly now, I don't work on it often. Sometimes it sits for years in between getting any attention from me.

Yesterday I got the large Magic Stars quilt top and back ironed again and this time also got all the stray threads cut. I got it layered and started pinning, and today I finished the pinning. I hope to start quilting it tomorrow.  Here it is on the bedroom floor getting measured for the back. I found a new much simpler way to measure, but I will write about that some other time, this post has gotten rather lengthy. 

A quick glance outside just now and the canyon has completely disappeared into the smoke again. I'm so thankful to have some bold fabric colors in my life right now, because my world is gray and dreary. Yet for now we are safe and hope that the smoke will clear at least some this coming week. 

I hope you are safe and well where ever you are. 

Thanks for reading! 

I'm linking up with Kathy at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Scrap Happy Stars

I made this small nine patch yesterday for my husband to use as a mug rug in his reading corner. It was a quick little project and he's pleased. It turned out just right and I like the way the colors came together. I need to do a few more smallish projects to balance out my quilting, I tend to make big quilts, but when it comes time to quilt them I sometimes regret the size of the project. 

I've been working on star blocks recently. I picked up a tutorial for Magic Stars from Joy at the Joyful Quilter a few months ago and have a large quilt top finished. You can read about it by clicking on the Magic Stars label on the right side of my blog. I'm using the leftover fabric from that project as a leader/ender project for a smaller version of the same quilt. Here is my box of pieces all cut and ready to sew together. This is my first leader/ender project and I'm delighted with how quickly it's coming along. I've made some errors and had to do some fixes, but it's a great way to get something done while I'm working on my main projects. If a leader/ender project is a new concept to you, like it was to me at the beginning of this year, you can find a nice tutorial on Quiltville's Quips and Snips here. 

Along with the large Magic Stars Quilt I wanted a runner that would be wide enough to cover the bed pillows. I chose a different star pattern for that and made a nice runner entirely out of scraps, my first completely scrappy project. I loved how it turned out. Then I went and measured it across the pillows and realized that the borders it would need to make it wide enough to cover the pillows would make it look ridiculous. A second row of stars was needed so I got to work cutting up more scraps and to my dismay found that I didn't have enough scraps in a couple of key colors to do the job. I had to go buy fabric, oh no! :) so I could get the project done. 

Now all the pieces are cut and just waiting for me to get them pieced. That will be my main project for today and tomorrow. We got a notice last night that our power company will likely be shutting off our power due to weather concerns/fire danger sometime tomorrow night and that it will be out for a couple of days. I will have to shift over to hand stitching during that time. I have no lack of hand projects so that won't be a problem. I'll miss being able to use my machines though. Actually, it just occurred to me that if I get the back pieced today or tomorrow for the large Magic Stars quilt, I can spend some of the power outage time getting the quilt sandwiched and ready for the machine once the power is restored. That may be a better plan for today. 

Well, I'd better get busy, lots to do. 

I'm linking up with Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap 

A Touch of Red

Today I noticed a stained paper towel by my husband's reading chair, a mug rug for his morning coffee. Oh boy, I thought maybe I could do a little better than that for him, so found a few purple scraps and a few red ones to give it a little zip and got to work. I had this little nine patch mug rug ready for him in no time. That's it so far for this month's use of red for Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I will try for a little more during the month, but truth to tell I have very little red in my scrap drawer, it's not a color I use often in my quilting. I'm linking up with Angela at So Scrappy for the September Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I'm still in purple mode, since the two Magic Star quilts I'm working on are half purple. I made a purple 16 patch block last Saturday and then didn't do a post. Honestly I was rather disappointed with the block - I didn't find enough light scraps to make any of it shine - I think it all looks pretty dull. Maybe I should have sneaked some red into it. 

My One Monthly Goal for August was to finish the blocks for the large Magic Stars quilt and come up with a layout on the design wall. I met and exceeded that goal. I finished the quilt top and bought batting for it. I already have the backing fabric I'm going to use. What I missed though was to post my completed goal. Sigh. My goal for September is to get the back put together for the Magic Stars quilt, layer it,  get it quilted and finished. Ya, and to remember to link up with Patty at the end of the month. I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts for September's One Monthly Goal. 

I've also been working on getting some new masks made for my sister and my niece. They are almost finished. I love the colors they chose and have had fun putting them together. I was glad to have the fabric on hand for all of them. 

Overall it's been a slow week, I spent most of the day Monday running around Chico trying to get as many errands done in one trip as possible. It wiped me out for a few days and slowed me down for the rest of the week. It's been hot here, and it's been smokey. Monday was probably the least smokey day we've had since the fires started in mid August. Today it's hot and windy and smokey. I got out early to get my plants watered and got a couple of pictures of my Morning Glory vine. I'm rather amazed by it. I planted the seeds for that last year and got just a little bit of growth and a few flowers. I didn't plant anything in that pot this year and didn't expect any morning glories at all. 

There was a little volunteer sprout from the Japanese Maple tree so I was putting some water in the planter to keep that going and the morning glory sprouted. It's been plagued with spider mites, but has taken off anyway, climbing up the trellis and spilling over, clinging to the wall and making friends with the fern next to it. I'm rather delighted with it, though troubled by the mites. If you happen to know a remedy for spider mites I'd love to hear about it. 

It was already pretty warm out when I got the picture this morning so the flowers were already nearly spent. It never really got cool overnight last night. It's 101 degrees outside right now so I don't expect it's going to cool down much tonight either and tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. 

The ferns were Dan's mom's plants, one from her bedroom and one from her studio. The stands I have them on were also hers. I love how they decorate the front porch. Last summer I wasn't able to care for them due to illness and nearly lost them. You would never know it to see them now. I did lose other plants, but I'm very happy to still have the ferns. 

Wish I knew how to get these photos side by side. It certainly looks like there is enough room to have them together but I can't figure out how under the new Blogger format. For the most part the new format doesn't bother me. I've been able to find most everything I want, but not that. 

This is Waldo. He lives on my front porch. I never know where he is, that's why I named him Waldo. He doesn't show himself often so it's always a bit of a surprise when he shows up, and I never know where that will be. He has travelled into the garage with me a couple of times, riding incognito on a plant I've brought to my potting table. He may start showing up here now and then. 

Here is a close up and a better look at Waldo himself. 

Well that's it for today I think. I've got time enough left this afternoon to finish the new masks. I'd better get to it. 

Hope you are having a great weekend and staying well and safe.